Polish Defector Seeks Asylum

Sygmond Ereneusz, the Polish dancer who defected at a folk dance festival in Haifa last week, has applied for political asylum in Israel.

Ereneusz gave himself up to well-known prisoners’-rights activist Herut Lapid of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar.

Appearing with Lapid at a press conference in Tiberias Wednesday, Ereneusz denied that he defected to be with an Israeli woman and fellow folk dancer he met in Canada last year.

He indicated, however, that he and the Jerusalem woman may indeed get married.

Ereneusz explained that he had been brought up a strict Catholic, but some years ago his grandfather informed him that his grandmother had been Jewish. Since then he had come to love Israel, and now wished to remain here.

Ereneusz said he had run afoul of the Polish authorities when he took part in student demonstration at Krakow University, where he studied.

Lapid said the dancer would be given work on the kibbutz and would enter a Hebrew language ulpan next month.